Plane carrying 188 people crashes after taking off from Jakarta

A Lion Air plane.
(Image credit: Adek Berry/AFP/Getty Images)

Shortly after takeoff from Jakarta Monday morning, a Lion Air Boeing 737 plane carrying 188 passengers and crew members crashed into the sea, Indonesia's National Search and Rescue Agency said.

Search and rescue boats are now in the area of the crash, and have collected the plane's fuselage. The flight was headed to Pangkal Pinang, the main city in the Bangka Belitung Islands off Sumatra, and was scheduled to take a little more than an hour. It is unclear if there are any survivors. Lion Air is a low-cost Indonesian airline.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.